Purposeful Connections: Empowering Research Sites Through Mentorship

Join us as we welcome new SCRS team member Lauren Stockwell, Content and Engagement Manager, with an insightful conversation about the value of mentorship in the clinical research community. Lauren shares her passion for empowering the next generation of clinical research professionals, highlighting SCRS's newly launched Mentorship Program. Explore how purposeful mentorship can elevate site professionals both personally and professionally, and offer practical tips on how site members can get involved. Tune in to learn how SCRS is creating meaningful connections to support the growth and success of site professionals!

Transcript

Marissa Hill: 0:00

Welcome to SCRS Talks presented by the Society for Clinical Research Sites. Thank you for joining us as we explore the latest insights, trends, and innovation shaping clinical research today. I'm Marissa Hill, Marketing and Communications Manager with SCRS. Today, I'm joined by my new colleague, Lauren Stockwell, Content and Engagement Manager with SCRS. Lauren, welcome, welcome, welcome to SCRS. We're very glad to have you on our team. For those that don't have the pleasure of knowing you, could you share a little bit about your background?

Lauren Stockwell: 0:34

Thank you so much for the warm welcome. I am so honored and excited to be on this incredible team working in such an incredible industry, really working to collaborate and connect with the correct people across this industry. I have firmly believed in the SCRS mission and vision since the very first time stepping into one of your summits, and I'm so excited to be a part of this crew. My background is entirely in education, really. My degree is in special education, and then I took that further into boot camp training programs that work to help educate and amplify that next generation of clinical research professionals. So I spent a few years doing that and really working to help connect that next generation into our beautiful industry and help empower them to have all of the skills needed to get into that space. I have this really wonderful sense of wanting to be a collaborator and wanting to really have those intentional conversations and I'm so excited. So I'm super excited about this mentorship program that we are offering now with Society for Clinical Research Sites, so we can do just that.

Marissa Hill: 1:39

I love that, Lauren. you truly are such an advocate for the site community and you've done some really amazing things. I mean, it's just a blessing to have you on the team, to say the least. About the mentorship program that you mentioned,As you know, 1 of our 4 pillars is mentorship and that's why we really wanted to launch this exciting new program. And I know that you have a lot of experience with mentorship too. So, what do you think is the value of mentorship for the site community?

Lauren Stockwell: 2:10

Yeah, absolutely. And for those of you listening that may not be familiar with the pillars of SCRS, it's advocate, educate, mentor and connect. All of our programming, all of our initiatives, all of our summits really place a focus on those four categories to be very intentional in those four categories. So that way we can all come together at the same table with the same mission in mind. That being said, mentorship is something that is so important. so incredibly important, especially inside of our site community. And I think so often at these conferences, we have a lot of passive mentorship. We have a lot of, Oh, you should meet this person and, Oh, you should chat with this person and go to this session to learn this thing and, and make sure you connect with this person afterwards. And, that's fantastic. But our mission with launching this particular program is to really ensure that we're purposefully connecting the right people to help those individuals at sites and within sites elevate themselves not only as professionals, but personally as well, right? So often we get stuck inside of our own space, or we're not sure how to grow or where to grow or what to even ask for. A lot of the mentorship focus is going to be on personal development as well and how you can have that work life balance, how you can get the most out of your day, how you can really build a better sense of understanding of why you come each and every single day and why you stay as well. So that's really the goal and, and what the value is of mentorship within that site community. We are all going through the same exact thing. And at the end of the day, it's all for the patient. And so having somebody that you can connect to and that you can look up to. Within that community is going to be really powerful.

Marissa Hill: 3:52

Absolutely. I mean, I love what you mentioned about how the SCRS community already offers a lot of informal mentorship. And this program is really going to, like you said, create those purposeful connections and help people understand their why. I really love that because it's just good to Think about, the amazing work that we're doing together and how we can help push each other forward. It's really helpful to be able to get constructive feedback on whatever projects you're working on. For example, if you want to step into a leadership role, or if you want to do a little bit more professional development and training, things like that, your mentor Can guide you in the right direction and provide different perspectives, share a little bit about their background and how they've grown. So I think it's really a mutually beneficial collaboration.

Lauren Stockwell: 4:44

100%. And honestly, that feedback is so critical as you're trying to become better. If you're not getting the feedback that you need in order to continue to do something and build something and, and grow in your own career and grow in your own strengths and skills. It's super important to receive that feedback. And that's, that's really one of the catalysts of this program is to give people that really intentional feedback loop. So often we get into our careers and we're just doing and tippy tap in a way of at what we need to do and we know what we need to do, but we don't understand the why we're doing it or how we can make that process better, right? Process improvement is something that's done all the time in business. It's done all the time in development of softwares and development of products products even, right? Six Sigma is a thing, but it's super important that we continue to apply those same values to our own lives. How can we take our day to day, our 24 hours that we all get every single day and use them more wisely and make them better and really find that sense of self and find that sense of Dharma, which is kind of that intersection of finding something that we're really good at, something that helps serve the world, something that is valuable to the world as well. And really making sure that we're leaning into those things and leaning into those tasks and those skills. So meeting with somebody every once in a while, so that way you can. And kind of pitch ideas to them and kind of bounce ideas off of them. Get some feedback, get some constructive criticism and have it be a safe space to do so too. That is a huge part of this whole program is creating and cultivating a safe space that is known walking in.

Marissa Hill: 6:22

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I think it's really obvious what the benefits are for sites to become a mentee. But what do you think the value of

Lauren Stockwell: 6:33

being a mentor is? Oh my gosh. So as somebody who has been a mentor for years, the values are limitless, right? The limit does not exist. Not only does it allow you this space to meet some really cool people who are younger in their career, and show them what it looks like to find that success, right? It also improves those leadership and interpersonal skills. We all have ways that we can improve. Just because we got to one leadership role or we've mentored somebody before doesn't mean that every single one of those interactions is going to be the same. So you can learn something from every conversation. It's going to really help expand out your network. You never know what that person is going to be in 10 years and what they will be working on. You never know what's going to happen. I mean, we say all the time this industry while being a multi million person industry, right? It's very small. So creating and cultivating those meaningful connections is super important always. And obviously we're working to create and cultivate this next generation of really wonderful research professionals that are understanding of Success in this industry, the development of somebody and pouring into somebody is one of the most rewarding things that you can possibly do. And it's so cool to be able to be a part of a program that is really, really making sure that we're highlighting how to do that. And then obviously the, the gaining fresh ideas and perspectives, we've all been there where we've been in a job for years and years and years, and all of a sudden some younger in their career person comes in and says, What if we did it this way? Can you try it? And it's wonderful and it works so much better. And it's so exciting that fresh perspective sometimes can give us a really wonderful unjaded view of what our day to day work looks like. And it can kind of reignite our passion. It can kind of reignite our purpose and really make sure we're reconnecting to that work, seeing it through fresh eyes. Thank you.

Marissa Hill: 8:31

Yeah, that's really beautiful to think of it like that. And you're right. It is so rewarding to be able to help someone grow professionally in their career, align with their goals. And it's just a really rewarding process for sure.

Lauren Stockwell: 8:45

For sure. And it's one of those things that we don't often get to do. I don't know about anybody listening, but I didn't wake up one day, look in the mirror, and say, I am worthy of being a mentor. Like, that doesn't happen. It's one of those, again, things that happens very unintentionally, and you just kind of fall into that type of role. But my challenge to those in the line that maybe are a little bit deeper into their career and thinking, can I do this? Is to really reflect on, do I have something to share? And am I willing to share it? Anybody who can answer yes to both of those questions is capable of being a mentor. I'll tell you that right now. Whether you are an introvert, an extrovert, leader in your company or somebody who's just been working there for a decent amount of time. It's super important to understand that in every single person there is a mentor and Whether you're a mentor to somebody who's a year behind you in the career or a mentor to somebody who's 20 years behind you in the career, we all have something to share. And so really, to me, the relationship between the mentor and mentee while formally. Right. I'm your mentor. You're my mentee kind of thing. It should be a symbiotic relationship. You're both giving feedback. You're both learning from each other. You're both contributing to the conversation and really ensuring that everybody is on the same page with everything and sharing ideas and collaborating and hopefully getting to meet up in person, right? All these wonderful things that come with that type of partnership.

Marissa Hill: 10:11

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. So for everyone that's interested in participating in this mentorship program, let's let them know how they can get involved.

Lauren Stockwell: 10:21

Yeah, we are super excited about this program. SCRS site members can participate as either mentors or mentees, or both, really. You know, we all have something to learn and all have something to share. Just visit the member benefits site tab on our member portal and express your interest there. You can also navigate through our website as well. The SCRS team will be thoughtfully matching mentors to mentees to really ensure that we're not only helping to compile a list of each, but also connecting people who can actually support the efforts that you want to gain, support the skills that you want to gain, support the qualities that you want to gain, whatever that looks like. So we're going to be looking at who is submitted to be both a mentor and mentee and matching people appropriately. The time commitment around this is we are asking people to commit to a Three to six months to this type of relationship. There are pretty loose parameters around this. you can have video conferencing, you can have phone calls, you can meet in person if that's appropriate, or if you guys are in the same area but we do ask that you guys have sessions together about once a month for three to six months. You can absolutely extend that process too if you would like to. We'll provide a bunch of different topics and resources for all of our mentors and mentees to kind of focus their conversation. But obviously we want to make sure that this process is unique to each and every single pairing. So just really depends on the person. But first step is to go online and to sign up and express interest inside of this program. One thing to also note is that this opportunity is currently only open to SCRS site members. And the spaces are limited, we want to make sure that this process is very purposeful. We want to thoughtfully be able to connect people. So make sure that you sign up today so that way we can get you matched and working towards your mentorship journey.

Marissa Hill: 12:16

Thank you again, Lauren for sharing more information about the mentorship program with our community. And once again, we're so, so glad to have you on the team. Welcome. For those of you listening, if you want to sign up for the mentorship program, you can do so on myscrs.org. There's a mentorship page on the member benefits drop down or you can log in directly to the SCRS member platform, trade wing, and you can sign up. We'll also be sharing communications for everyone who subscribed to our email list. So if you're not subscribed, make sure to do so. And thank you all for listening. Thanks guys.